Verbivoracious Festschrift 3: The Syllabus

I was a little surprised, last year, to be invited to contribute a piece to the above festschrift from Singapore-based alternative literature publisher Verbivoracious Press. They appear to specialise principally in the work of British writer Christine Brooke-Rose (1923-2012), many of whose books they have reprinted. The title of the above compilation, "The Syllabus," though, shows that they also aspire to represent a whole universe of experimental writing - what might be called (in Roger Horrocks' phrase) the Kingdom of Alt.



The book Mark Nicholls wanted me to write about was Miss Herbert (2007), by British novelist Adam Thirlwell. The reason this surprised me was that he based the request on the blogpost I'd written about it, a piece which strikes me (in retrospect) as rather unkind - though I certainly don't subscribe there to any of the more ad hominem attacks Thirlwell's book received in the more up-themselves reviews.

We quickly rejected the idea of compiling an essay from the blog itself, and instead I decided to take the licence he offered to compose a more "creative" piece taking off from Thirlwell's book (which rejoices in a number of titles in America and Britain, my favourite being the one on the spine of the paperback edition: Miss Herbert: A book of novels, romances, and their translators, containing ten languages, set on four continents, and accompanied by maps, portraits, squiggles and illustrations ...

Each contributor was limited to 500 words, and it must have been a devil of a job to assemble them all, since it was only last week that I was at last alerted to the appearance of the compilation:

A monument to our insatiable verbivoracity, The Syllabus is an act of humble genuflection before the authors responsible for those texts which have transported us to the peak of readerly nirvana and back. The texts featured, chosen in a rapturous frenzy by editors and contributors alike, represent a broad sweep of the most important exploratory fiction written in the last hundred years (and beyond). Featuring 100 texts from (fewer than) 100 contributors, The Syllabus is a form of religious creed, and should be read primarily as a holy manual from which the reader draws inspiration and hope, helping to shape their intellectual and moral life with greater awareness, and lead them towards those works that offer deep spiritual succour while surviving on a merciless and unkind planet. Readers of this festschrift should expect nothing less than an incontrovertible conversion from reader to insatiable verbivore in 225 pages.

“The Syllabus, as a third volume of Verbivoracious Festschrift, is a celebration of reading. It’s a great literary feast for the true readers, for all the verbivores around the world, a feast consisting of hundred delicious meals. I am honored to be a part of that unforgettable menu.” — Dubravka Ugrešić.

And what exactly is in it? Here's a list of the contents, arranged (as you can see) in chronological order:

Introduction or, The Art of Sillybustering

The Editors

Jonathan Swift — A Modest Proposal [1729]

Scott Beauchamp

Laurence Sterne — The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy [1759]

Silvia Barlaam

Xiao Hong (萧红) — The Field of Life and Death [1935]

Wee Teck Lim

Louis-Ferdinand Céline — Death on the Installment Plan [1936]

Paul John Adams

Rayner Heppenstall — The Blaze of Noon [1939]

Juliet Jacques

James Joyce — Finnegans Wake [1939]

Fionnuala Nic Mheanmán

Flann O’Brien — At Swim-Two-Birds [1939]

Edwin Turner

Raymond Queneau — Exercises in Style [1947]

Geoff Wilt

Boris Vian — Foam of the Daze [1947]

Tosh Berman

Douglas Woolf — The Hypocritic Days [1955]

Ammiel Alcalay

Henry Miller — Quiet Days in Clichy [1956]

G.N. Forester

Muriel Spark — The Comforters [1957]

Kim Fay

Alexander Trocchi — Cain’s Book [1960]

Gill Tasker

Michel Butor — Mobile [1962]

John Trefry

Robert Pinget — The Inquisitory [1962]

???

B.S. Johnson — Omnibus [1964-1971]

Nicolas Tredell

Raymond Queneau — The Blue Flowers [1965]

Inez Hedges

Alan Burns — Celebrations [1967]

Joseph Andrew Darlington

Guillermo Cabrera Infante — Three Trapped Tigers [1967]

Pablo Medina

Macedonia Fernández — The Museum of Eterna’s Novel [1967]

Steve Penkevich

Anna Kavan — Ice [1967]

Kristine Rabberman

J.M.G Le Clézio — Terra Amata [1967]

Keith Moser

Flann O’Brien — The Third Policeman [1967]

Alex Johnston

Ishmael Reed — The Freelance Pallbearers [1967]

Joseph McGrath

Christine Brooke-Rose — Between [1968]

Katarzyna Bartoszyńska

Anthony Earnshaw & Eric Thacker — Musrum [1968]

Kenneth Cox

Nicholas Mosley — Impossible Object [1968]

Shiva Rahbaran

Vladimir Nabokov — Ada or Ardor [1969]

Rob Friel

J.G. Ballard — The Atrocity Exhibition [1970]

Rick McGrath

Pierre Guyotat — Eden Eden Eden [1970]

Peter Blundell

Raymond Federman — Double or Nothing [1971]

Lance Olsen

Hubert Selby Jnr. — The Room [1971]

Georgina Holland

Stanley Crawford — Log of the S.S. the Mrs Unguentine [1972]

Stephen Sparks

Tom Mallin — Erowina [1972]

Nate Dorr

Ann Quin — Tripticks [1972]

Francis Booth

Guy Davenport — Taitlin! [1974]

Eric Byrd

Lawrence Durrell — The Avignon Quintet [1974-1985]

Nadine Mainard

Chrisine Brooke-Rose — Thru [1975]

David Detrich

Georges Perec — An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris [1975]

Lauren Elkin

Fernando del Paso — Palinuro of Mexico [1976]

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado

Coleman Dowell — Island People [1976]

Eugene H. Hayworth

Raymond Federman — Take It or Leave It [1976]

Steve Katz

Italo Calvino — If on a winter’s night a traveller [1979]

Silvia Barlaam

Gilbert Sorrentino — Mulligan Stew [1979]

M.J. Nicholls

Roald Dahl — The Twits [1980]

Harold Lad

Donald Barthelme — Sixty Stories [1981]

Lee Klein

Alexander Theroux — Darconville’s Cat [1981]

Steven Moore

Camilo José Cela — Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son [1982]

Rosalyn Drexler

D. Keith Mano — Take Five [1982]

Nathan Gaddis

Thomas Bernhard — Woodcutters [1984]

Anonymous

Christine Brooke-Rose — Amalgamemnon [1984]

Ellen G. Friedman

Rikki Ducornet — The Stain [1984]

Michelle Ryan-Sautour

Christoph Meckel — The Figure on the Boundary Line [1984]

Ben Winch

Milorad Pavić — Dictionary of the Khazars (Male Edition) [1984]

Alec Nevala-Lee

Milorad Pavić — Dictionary of the Khazars (Female Edition) [1984]

Silvia Barlaam

Don Delillo — White Noise [1985]

Barbara Melville

Gilbert Sorrentino — Pack of Lies Trilogy [1985-1989]

Dick Witherspoon

Ronald Sukenick — In Form: Digressions on the Act of Fiction [1985]

Tom Willard

Marcel Bénabou — Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books [1986]

A. Writer

Michael Westlake — Imaginary Women [1987]

Michael Westlake

Nicholson Baker — The Mezzanine [1988]

M.J. Nicholls

Italo Calvino — Six Memos for the Next Millennium [1988]

Daniel Levin Becker

David Markson — Wittgenstein’s Mistress [1988]

Christopher WunderLee

Janice Galloway — The Trick is to Keep Breathing [1989]

Gillian Devine

Jacques Roubaud — The Great Fire of London [1989]

Ian Monk

Felipe Alfau — Chromos [1990]

Sam Moss

Robert Alan Jamieson — A Day at the Office [1991]

Rodge Glass

Alasdair Gray — Poor Things [1992]

Rodge Glass

W.G. Sebald — The Emigrants [1992]

Peter Bebergal

William Gaddis — A Frolic of His Own [1994]

Christopher WunderLee

Jáchym Topol — City Sister Silver [1994]

Alex Zucker

Martin Amis — The Information [1995]

Anthony Vacca

William H. Gass — The Tunnel [1995]

H.L. Hix

Gilbert Sorrentino — Red the Fiend [1995]

Jenny Offill

Roberto Bolaño — Nazi Literature in the Americas [1996]

Adrian Carney

Geoff Dyer — Out of Sheer Rage [1997]

Kathleen Heil

Alasdair Brotchie & Harry Mathews (eds.) — Oulipo Compendium [1998]

Jason Graff

Dubravka Ugrešić — The Museum of Unconditional Surrender [1998]

Jasmina Lukić

Percival Everett — Glyph [1999]

Tom Conoboy

Ali Smith — Other Stories and Other Stories [1999]

M.J. Nicholls

Ignácio de Loloya Brandão — Anonymous Celebrity [2002]

Ricki Aklon

Curtis White — Requiem [2002]

Trevor Dodge

Lucy Ellmann — Dot in the Universe [2003]

Ali Millar

Dubravka Ugrešić — Thank You for Not Reading [2003]

Ana Stanojevic

Roberto Bolaño — 2666 [2004]

Alex Cox

Meredith Brosnan — Mr. Dynamite [2004]

Jarleth L. Prendergast

David Mitchell — Cloud Atlas [2004]

Stephen Mirabito

Steve Katz — Antonello’s Lion [2005]

W.C. Bamberger

Graham Rawle — Woman’s World [2005]

Michael Leong

Gilbert Adair — The Evadne Mount Trilogy [2006-2009]

Manny Rayner

Nicola Barker — Darkmans [2007]

Kinga Burger

Lydia Davis — Varieties of Disturbance [2007]

Ali Millar

Lydie Salvayre — Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal [2007]

Juliet Jacques

Adam Thirwell — Miss Herbert [2007]

Jack Ross

Urmuz — Collected Works [2007]

Eddie Watkins

Marilyn Chin — Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen [2009]

Melanie Ho

Gabriel Josipovici — Only Joking [2010]

Gianni Dane

Steven Moore — The Novel: An Alternative History [2010-2013]

Nathan Gaddis

Will Self — Walking to Hollywood [2010]

Richard Strachan

Charles Newman — In Partial Disgrace [2013]

Eric Lundgren

The Influences of Others

Igo Wodan

What, no Raymond Roussel, you say? No this person, no that? Instead of such carping, let's just celebrate all the weird and wonderful texts they have managed to include in their roll-call of 100+:

Texts:

A Modest Proposal — The Avignon Quintet — The Comforters — Finnegans Wake — In Partial Disgrace — Impossible Object — Wittgenstein’s Mistress — The Freelance Pallbearers — Foam of the Daze — Between — Darconville’s Cat — Thru — Terra Amata — Poor Things — Pack of Lies — Amalgamemnon — Anonymous Celebrity — The Stain — Palinuro of Mexico — Miss Herbert — Tristram Shandy — The Mezzanine — White Noise — Glyph — The Twits — Woodcutters — Erowina — Chromos — A Day at the Office — Darkmans — The Evadne Mount Trilogy — Mobile — An Attempt to Exhaust a Place in Paris — The Trick is to Keep Breathing — The Great Fire of London — Thank You For Not Reading — Exercises in Style — Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books — B.S. Johnson Omnibus — Six Memos for the Next Millennium — Sixty Stories — Requiem — Mrs Caldwell Speaks to Her Son — The Atrocity Exhibition — Walking to Hollywood — At Swim-Two-Birds — The Death of the Author — Dot in the Universe — Eco: On Literature — Dictionary of the Khazars — The Novel: An Alternate History — Varieties of Disturbance — Mr. Dynamite — The Blue Flowers — Portrait of the Artist as a Domesticated Animal  — The Tunnel — Oulipo Compendium — In Form: Digressions in the Art of Fiction — Take it or Leave it — If on a winter’s night a traveller — The Information — Double or Nothing — The Hypocritic Days — Berg — 2666 — The Inquisitory — Woman’s World — Museum of Eterna’s Novel — The Blaze of Noon — Musrum — Island People — Take Five — Death on Credit — Three Trapped Tigers — Cain’s Book — Invisible Cities — Out of Sheer Rage — Log of the S.S. Mrs Unguentine — The Room — Revenge of the Moon Vixen — Mulligan Stew — Ice — Red the Fiend — Urmuz: Complete Works — Ada — Taitlin! — Celebrations — The Figure on the Boundary Line — City Silver Sister — Nazi Literature in the Americas — The Emigrants — Other Stories and Other Stories — The Third Policeman — Antonello’s Lion — Cloud Atlas — Imaginary Women — The Museum of Unconditional Surrender — Eden Eden Eden— Quiet Days in Clichy


Contributors:

Scott Beauchamp — Kim Fay— Igo Wodan — Fionnuala McManamon— Eric Lundgren — Shiva Rahbaran— Joseph McGrath — Tosh Berman— Katarzyna Bartoszyńska — David Detrich— Ellen Friedman — Steven Moore— Keith Moser — Rodge Glass— Michelle Ryan-Santour — Jack Ross— Silvia Barlaam — Tom Conoboy— Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado — M.J. Nicholls— Barbara Melville — Nate Dorr— Sam Moss — Kinga Burger— Manny Rayner — John Trefry— Lauren Elkin — Gillian Devine—Ian Monk — Peter Blundell— Ana Stanojevic — Geoff Wilt— Nicolas Tredell — Daniel Levin Becker— Lee Klein — Lance Olsen— Trevor Dodge — Rosalyn Drexler— Rick McGrath — Richard Strachan— Edwin Turner — Ali Millar— Alec Nevala-Lee — Nathan Gaddis— Alberta Rigid — Jarleth L. Prenderghast—Inez Hedges — Juliet Jacques— H.L. Hix — Jason Graff— Tom Willard — Steve Katz— Anthony Vacca — Ammiel Almacay— Lee Rourke — Alex Cox— Michael Leong — Eric Byrd— Steve Penkevich — Kenneth Cox— Gene Hayworth — Paul John Adams— Pablo Medina — Gill Tasker— Kathleen Heil — Georgina Holland— Stephen Sparks — Anonymous— Melanie Ho — Jenny Offill— Kristine Rabberman — Eddie Watkins— Rob Friel — Joseph Andrew Darlington— Alex Zucker — Ben Winch— Alex Johnston — W.C. Bamberger— Stephen Mirabito — Michael Westlake— Peter Bebergal — Jasmina Lukić — Nadine Mainard—G.N. Forester

Here are the publication details:

Release Date:

May 11th, 2015. ISBN: 9789810935931. 237pp.

Pricing Information:

Paperback: GBP9.99 + postage GBP2.00 within UK, US, AU, CAN, EU, ZA, NZ, IN and SG.

Available from:

all booksellers and usual online retailers, or the Verbivoracious website at sales@verbivoraciouspress.org

I've got a good mind to use it precisely as they suggest: as a syllabus for the new course in "Advanced Fiction" I'm planning (to commence at Massey Albany in 2017). Maybe that's a bit cheeky, but it'll certainly be listing it as a recommended text for the students.

Go on, then, test yourself. Just how many of the above books have you actually read? How many have you even heard of, for that matter? Not even Richard Taylor would score 100% on that one, I suspect. Scott Hamilton, perhaps?